THIS WEEKEND
Dozens of people walked slowly to the box office this weekend as Dickie
Roberts: Former Child Star muscled its way to the top of the
charts. Overall the box office plummeted to the lowest totals of the year
with the top ten grossing a mere $46.2M over the three days.

Paramount will sure to be touting Dickie Roberts
as the number one movie in America for the rest of the week, as the David
Spade comedy took in $6.7M, according to final
studio figures, over the depressed post-Labor Day weekend. Its per screen
average of $3,288 was tops in the top ten, but with poor reviews and bigger
films being released over the next couple of weeks, expect the former child
star to end his run with around $20M.

Falling 57% from last weekend's three-day total was the MGM horror sequel
Jeepers Creepers 2, which scared up
$6.6M. Its total now stands at $27.3M. Staying solidily in third place
was the Johnny Depp adventure Pirates of the Caribbean,
which swashbuckled its way to another $5.3M. Its total of $281.8M puts
it at number 19 on the all-time list, just ahead of this summer's The
Matrix Reloaded. At the start of the summer, no one would have
believed that both a talking fish and a pirate film would have surpassed
Neo and company at the box office.

Another film with strong staying power landed in fourth place this week
as the Disney body-switching comedy Freaky Friday
brought in $5M this weekend, bringing its total to $97.1M. It should cross
the century mark by next weekend. Rounding out the top 5 was the action-adventure
S.W.A.T, which made $4.6M bringing
its total to $108.8M.

The other new film opening this weekend was the Brian Helgeland/Heath
Ledger collaboration, The Order. The
supernatural thriller which finds Ledger playing a priest who investigates
Sin Eaters, took in $4.4M this weekend, for a per screen average of a sad
$2,248. Look for The Order to disappear
from radar screens quickly, and land on the video shelves before the end
of the year.

The rest of the top ten featured films, all successful in their own
right. At number seven was the Kevin Costner western, Open
Range which made $4.2M this weekend, bringing its total to a
very solid $49.3M. In 8th place was the Oscar bait horse racing film Seabiscuit,
which raced up another $3.7M bringing its total to a robust $109.6M.

In 9th place was the battle of the horror heavyweights, Freddy
vs. Jason which fought its way to another $3.2M, bringing its
total to a horrifying $78.3M. And closing out the top ten was the Brittany
Murphy/Dakota Fanning comedy Uptown Girls
which took in $2.5M, bringing its total to $33.6M.

Compared to projections, both Dickie Roberts
and The Order came in slightly below
Gitesh's predictions of $8M and $6M respectively.

For reviews of Pirates of the Caribbean
and Where's The Party Yaar? visit The
Chief Report.

This column is updated three times each week:
Thursday
(upcoming weekend's summary), Sunday
(post-weekend analysis with estimates), and Monday
night (actuals). Data source: Exhibitor
Relations, EDI. Opinions expressed
in this column are those solely of the author.

Last Updated : September
8, 2003 at 4:45PM EDT

Gitesh Pandya can be seen each Friday on "The
Biz" airing at 12:30pm and 9:30pm ET on CNNfn.